The popular interpretation of Ellie’s reaction at the end of the game is she’s complacent with Joel’s lie about the Firefly doctors. She knows he isn’t telling the truth but doesn’t care. She’s simply just happy to finally have a companion and father figure in her life.

“One of the things that happened during production was I became a dad to a girl (it sounds weird to say it like that). One of the first ‘ah ha!’ moments I had when working on the story and structure, was when we figured out Joel’s arc. His arc is all about this irrational love he feels for this kid. He would do anything to take away her pain and definitely anything in the world save her from harm. It’s about how far this guy is willing to go to save Ellie. Clearly he’s willing to give up his life (he frankly doesn’t care much about it),” said Druckmann.

Druckmann also gave more details on Joel’s emotional state at the end of The Last of Us and how much his teenage companion, Ellie, means to him. Their relationship is a huge part of the The Last of Us’ plot line.

“There are all these walls he’s put around himself to try to protect his emotional state. He’s willing to put all those down and put himself at risk because it’s worth it. It’s worth it to put himself at risk to have that love of your kid, even though you might have to deal with something horrible happening. He’s even willing to put his soul on the line, damning the rest of man kind in exchange for this girl’s life. What happens here with this lie and this emphasis on the lie, is that this has taken his journey to the end of the line,” said Druckmann.

Ellie’s appearance has changed significantly since The Last of Us was first announced. Originally, she looked a lot like Canadian actor Ellen Page.

Druckmann then discussed his relationship with his daughter. He explained that as his daughter gets older and becomes her own little person, he gets to see the world through her eyes. He used this realization as inspiration for Ellie’s story arc in The Last of Us.

“As a game creator I look around at kind of what we are making and what will be her role models from our stories, and I don’t like what I see. More specifically I’m talking about our female characters. Whether we want to admit it or not, these are role models. We sexualise, we objectify, we marginalize and we reduce these female characters to lot less than they can be,” explained Druckmann.

While The Last of Us’ ending is designed to make the player think and is open to interpretation, Druckmann’s intentions for the game’s finale are very different than what many gamers might imagine.

“While working on The Last of Us, I had this secret agenda, an agenda that’s becoming less and less secret the more I talk about it. I wanted to create one of the coolest non-sexualized female video game protagonists. I felt like with the last of us, if we did that, we had an opportunity to change the video game industry. I know it sounds pretentious, but that was my goal.”

The Last of Us’ story went through various iterations before reaching the final tale we experienced in the final game.

Ellie was designed to be a very capable character in The Last of Us. As the game progresses, this becomes even more apparent, especially towards the end of its story and during the sections where the player takes direct control of her.

“Ellie starts off clinging to parental figures thinking she needs someone much stronger than her to survive in this world. It starts of with Malrene and quickly shifts to Joel as they start off this journey. She wants to be like Joel; she looks up to him and she kind of wants to win his respect… When Ellie’s talking to Sam, she talks about how her greatest fear, more than anything, is ending up alone. But as the story develops, we find out she’s quite capable and in fact she’s been capable this whole time. At times she stands up to Joel and forces him to respect her as an equal…”, said Druckmann.

The next piece of information is perhaps the most interesting thing discussed during the keynote. Apparently Druckmann and his team of writers intended Ellie’s reaction to Joel’s lie to be interpreted very differently than many gamers have.

“Then we come to that ending and that lie and that okay and what does that okay mean? It’s definitely not a complacent ‘yea I’ll go along with you’, in fact, it’s the opposite. It’s Ellie waking up for the first time, waking up and realizing she can’t rely on him anymore. While she loves him for what he’s done for her, she hates him for robbing her of that choice. She knows that she has to leave him and make her own decisions and mistakes.”